The Well Necessities Collection Box Review + Coupon – Spring 2016

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The Well Necessities Collection is a functional foods subscription box curated by a registered dietitian and a doctor.The folks behind TWN believe that overcoming illness is harder and more expensive than preventing it in the first place.

This box was sent to us at no cost for review purposes. (Check out the review process post to learn more about how we review boxes.)

I’ve had sweet bars from this company before, but the savory bars are new to me.I have a little mental thing about savory bars – I tend to expect bars to be sweet – but once I got over this, I enjoyed it quite a bit.It helps that I am a fan of both olives and walnuts.

I gobbled this up but it gave me a stomach ache.I suspect it had a lot more fat and a lot less protein than I am used to eating.It did taste pretty good, though.Reminded me of a healthy version of a Mounds bar.

These had an interesting texture and a mild vinegar flavor.I think I am still more of a fan of the texture of roasted chickpeas as opposed to these but it is nice to see a new form of bean for snacking.

I just ate these plain but they would be good as a yogurt topper (some of them fell apart in the bag).The dried blueberries were not too hard, which was nice for a change (usually I don’t care for dried blueberries because of the texture, but they were good here).

Bob’s Red Mill stuff takes up like half my pantry.I’ll admit to not having paid much attention to their gluten free offerings in the past (since I do eat gluten), but this was a great work breakfast one day last week when I was in a hurry.I threw in some freeze-dried fruit to add a bit of flavor.

Another good on-the-go breakfast.I’m not much for pouch snacks (I tend to think of them as kid food) but I’ve had these before and I like them.Even though there is a lot of apple, they don’t feel just like applesauce (which is great because a lot of pouch snacks are like eating applesauce with 1% of something else in there for color).

This confused me because it has nutrition information on the back.Best I can tell, the nutrition information is for strawberries.(I had thought there might be something edible like a fruit leather inside the card, but it is just a plain thank you card.)

This is one of the things I have just not gotten around to trying yet.This box was a bit overwhelming when it arrived – so many items in there.This will be part of my lunch or an afternoon snack later this week.

I make smoothies with protein powder every morning.This blended pretty well and the flavor didn’t stand out much (but I also added PB2, cacao, matcha, powdered greens, and mixed berries, so no flavor stands out much).

I’ve been seeing this brand a lot in subscription boxes the last few months.I didn’t open this yet because I really can’t justify having more lip balms that I’ve used once (a consequence of several years’ worth of subscription boxes).But it will get used eventually.

I got this in a recent Vegan Cuts snack box.We do eat a lot of pasta around here and I enjoyed this.It didn’t taste too beany.(Fair warning: I try to eat only whole grains at home and the texture was fine for me, but may not be what you are used to if you eat regular – white – pasta.)

I think I got these in like my first food subscription box ever.I ate a whole full-sized bag then in about two days.I’m glad this is smaller so I can’t overindulge.I find the texture of these to be a little bit hard (but the flavor makes up for it).

There were actually two packets of this but one didn’t make it in the picture.They were pretty average as stevia goes.I appreciate wanting to use something natural for your non-caloric sweetener but stevia is not my favorite.

This went in my morning smoothies.I don’t like the flavor of moringa on its own but in a smoothie, it blends pretty well.(This moringa is from the leaves of an African tree and is a recently popular superfood.)

Another smoothie inclusion.Chlorella is a species of algae that may stimulate the immune system and/or promote the growth of healthy gut bacteria populations.It is hard to see an effect from one small packet, though.

I was more of a fan of the powder than this liquid.I guess it is hard for the cocoa flavor to add much to Crio-Bru, which is how I used this.(In my defense, I don’t like coffee and I did want to try it out!)

Verdict: I calculated a value of about $47 for this quarter’s The Well Necessities Collection. This box promises over $50 in value and, to be fair, a lot of the prices above are Vitacost sale prices, so the MSRP of the box is almost certainly at least a few dollars higher.At any rate, for a $35 food box (including shipping), this is a good value.Although I had tried many of these products already in other food subscriptions, there were also quite a few new items.I appreciated that everything was generally quite low in sugar; I felt like someone was actually paying attention to the nutritional profiles of the items in the box instead of just grabbing food items and throwing them in there.

Ragan stumbled across My Subscription Addiction in late 2013 and immediately subscribed to way too many beauty boxes. She’s now focused on boxes for her cats and dog, vegan/vegetarian food boxes, and craft subscriptions (and she didn’t give up beauty boxes entirely).

All views in this review are the opinion of the author. My Subscription Addiction will never accept payment in exchange for a review, but will accept a box at no cost to provide honest opinions on the box. This post may contain affiliate/referral links. Read the complete My Subscription Addiction disclosure.

17 Comments

michelle
January 10, 2017 at 2:11 pm

Hi Liz, I just emailed the CS there because there was a 30% off coupon but no code. Anyhow, within 20 minutes the owner, Lisa, contacted me directly(AWESOME) and let me know how excited they would be to have me aboard and there new collection launches next week. I wanted to keep people in the loop if they’re also interested. Also 30% off code is: MINDFUL30 I’m super excited for next week!! XO-michelle

Thanks for the great review! This box looked great enough that I jumped in for a full year. I’ve recently had to convert to near-veganism due to food allergies. This is a brilliant way to try out new products that I may not have picked up otherwise. [I’ve been trying out VeganCuts for a couple months, but I’m seeing a much greater variety of products and a much better value here.]

Just a quick note here– I purchased an annual subscription (4 boxes) for $90. The coupon code worked for free shipping on all boxes, making each box approximately $22.50 (or getting one free). Definitely worth it to me!

Love with Food rarely hits the cost of the box in terms of value on a month-to-month basis. It can be a good deal with the points from reviews, a coupon, and a long term subscription, though. It also kind of depends on what you’re looking for — Love with Food will have more sweet things but some items that are unsuitable for vegetarians, for example.

Urthbox used to be one of my favorites but I have not heard good things about them in the last year.

So true and same with bestowed. I’m still in an annual sub with love w/food. Cancelled bestowed. And traded up to this one. Also have bulu and degusta. Those ones are good enough for the prices. REALLY looking fwd to the box coming up! (fingers crossed)

Anya
May 10, 2016 at 2:42 pm

Why would you recommend staying away from Urthbox? I love trying food sub boxes and got a coupon recently for Urthbox, but would appreciate a heads up of what to expect beforehand from a previous subscriber.

I had an issue where a product leaked all over the box, like covered the contents in green goo (some kind of smoothie). I was hoping their customer service would send me a new box (because, I mean, I didn’t want the food products with gunk all over them–I included pics), but they just said they’d send me an extra product in my next box. And I’m pretty sure they didn’t. Mainly, I just wasn’t that happy with the value of it and product selection overall, and switched to getting a smaller version of the box for a few months. Ended up canceling at the end of that.

It’s possible they’ve improved, but there are a lot of food boxes out there–including VeganCuts, if you want a vegan one. I’d suggest checking reviews on here for whichever one you want!

And after saying I really like Love With Food, I got my box today and wasn’t too happy with it. So it really varies from month to month, but I’ve tried some products from there that I’ve really liked and bought more of (like Route 11 Dill pickle potato chips).

Anya
May 10, 2016 at 9:20 pm

Wow, sounds like their customer service needs some improvement. They could have totally made that right. Thanks for the feedback. I’ve been subscribed to LVF in the past and the boxes have been hit or miss for me.

Hi! I’m Lisa, the registered dietitian behind this product. Thanks for taking notice. A lot of love goes into our collections. It’s intended to be a starter kit- actually grew from the idea of providing my clients w a KiT to accompany their meal plans. I hope you like!